There are currently three cities in the International version of Silkroad Online: Jangan, Donwhang and Hotan. They are separated by four sections: China, Western China, Oasis Kingdom, and Taklamakan Desert. Each different section has a different level ranges of monsters. Joymax plans to add more areas in the future, such as The Hermit's world and High Heaven.

Europe has been released in the Korean version of Silkroad Online, featuring different buildings, weapons, and characters from China. The middle East, Europe and West Asia have been released on some of the other editions apart from the International version. Europe will be released in the international version sometime in July.

There are three cities in the International version of Silkroad Online: Jangan, Donwhang, and Hotan. Each of the city has NPCs (non-player character). The NPCs usually sell items, repair items, and give you quests. In every city, there is a Defense Trader which sells and repair Protectors; a Blacksmith that can repair and sell weapons; a Potion Store that sells herbs, potions, and pills; a Grocery Trader that sells alchemy items, accessories, Moving Speed Scrolls, and capes; a Hunter Union where you can buy a Hunter Identity card; a Trader Association where you can buy a Trader Flag; a Trade Shop which allows you to sell and buy trader goods; and a Stable where you can purchase horse, pets, transport and horse potions.

In the game, there are a number of unique monsters that are very powerful and similar to "bosses" in other computer games. They spawn in designated areas every couple of hours. When they do spawn there is a server wide message indicated that the unique has spawned. When fighting a unique, they will spawn their own monsters (champions, giants, and elites) when the unique's health hit a certain point. When killed, the unique monster will drop a good number of items, consisting of repair invalid equipment, special return scrolls, gold, and some alchemy drops.

Only Tiger Girl, Uruchi, Isyutaru, and Lord Yarkan are present in the International version of Silkroad Online.

Similar to most MMORPGs, characters increase their skills and levels by gaining experience points through combat or quests. In combat, the amount of points gained is determined by the difficulty of monster killed. For points gained through quests, the amount of points is proportional to its difficulty. Characters also gain "Job experience points" by successfully completing objectives for a profession, such as a merchant completing a trade run or a hunter killing a thief.

Points are divided into four types; Experience Points (XP), Skill Points (SP), Job Experience points, and Stat points. Experience points are used to increase the character's level, Skill Points are used to raise masteries and skills, and Job Experience points allows the character to level up their Job level, which in future updates will provide bonuses. In addition, the higher the job level, the more damage will be dealt to both player and Non-player character (NPC) enemies of the profession (such as hunter attacking thief).

After leveling up their regular character level, the character receives five Stat points, of which one is automatically applied to Strength and one is applied to Intelligence. The other three points are added at the discretion of the player, and can be distributed between Strength and Intelligence. Strength increases hit points and physical attack, while Intelligence increases mana points and magical attack.

There are two leveling methods which are used within the game of Silk Road, first of which is "XP Leveling," which is when a player gains experience faster than skill points. The other is known as "SP Farming," which is when a player grinds specifically for the purpose of gaining SP at a faster rate than XP. The difference in the player's highest mastery level (regardless of whether it is a Force mastery, or a Weapon mastery) and the player's character level determines the amount of SP that is gained after killing a monster. The higher this difference is, the higher will be the amount of SP you will gain at each kill.

Often referred to as "berzerk," "rage," or "zerk," berserker mode is a special mode of enhanced running speed and attack power. In addition to the four main points (XP, SP, Job Experience, and Stat) gained by killing monsters, a character can also obtain berserker points. However, these points accumulate at a much slower pace, as one does not receive them for each kill. Once a character gains five berserker points (as indicated by the pink dots in the upper left corner, around the character's picture), the character has the choice of enabling berserker mode by pressing the tab key, the default activator key. This mode lasts for around one minute, until the berserker points run out (which can be seen by the pink dots in the upper corner). Berserker mode is useful for killing a large or difficult monster faster, killing larger amounts of monsters in a shorter amount of time, killing another player faster, or simply to escape or travel someplace else at a faster speed.

Players can pick a job at level 20 in the game: a trader, a hunter, or a thief. Traders buy goods for normal price in a city and attempt to bring them to another city, where they can be sold for higher prices, thus making profits. This is the process of trading. Thieves attempt to rob the trader and steal the goods so that they can sell it to the Black Market in the Thief Town. Traders may hire player hunters to protect themselves from thieves. Traders get job exp from successfully completing trade runs, hunters get exp from killing thiefs, either NPC thieves or player thieves, and thieves get exp from successfully stealing goods or killing traders/hunters. Characters can switch freely between jobs and are not locked into any role, however, switching between opposite jobs will result in a loss of some job experience, as you kill your opponents. When switching between jobs, there will be a penalty of ten minutes, whereby, you will not get to wear trader, hunter or thief job items temporarily. Re-logging in will solve this penalty.

If a thief kills a trader or steals goods he will lose trader exp according to the thief exp he gained. Likewise if a trader successfully sells goods he will lose thief exp according to the trader exp he gained. As for hunters, their exp is not greatly affected from switching from one job or the other. If they kill a player thief they do lose some thief exp but this will be small compared to the exp a thief gets from stealing goods and vice versa for when a thief kills a hunter so it is possible to be a trader/hunter or a thief/hunter without worrying about losing a major amount of exp in each job.

Stars represent the value of the goods a merchant carries, with one star being the lowest value and five stars being the highest. NPC thieves are generated to attack all merchants; the higher the value of the goods, the more thieves that are generated. When a merchant's transport is killed, the player thief can take the goods the transport dropped, and then take it to the thieves' village.

At one star level of trading, traders cannot be attacked or killed by player thieves. NPC thieves will however attack them. One star level trading is generally considered safe but does not produce much profit.

Players can set up stalls to sell and advertise their items they may have found from killing monsters, trading, or buying. The seller determines the price at which to sell each item, although it is possible for buyers to communicate within the stall window. As NPCs sell a limited selection of items, stalls are a popular way to acquire high level or unusual items. It is possible for players to set up a stall overnight and sell items as it does not require the player to control the stall directly to sell something.

At level 20, players can create guilds, which allows its members to chat with each other and participate in guild wars. Guilds can also "level up" with guild points. Guild points are obtained when the members of guild kill monsters and receive Skill Points (1 Skill Point is equal to 1 Guild point). Guild members do not lose their own SP this way. However, members of the guild can donate their Skill Points to the Guild as Guild Points.' These guild members will lose their own SP this way. Guilds can grow by spending gold and gaining Guild Points, allowing access to more options like forming alliances (unions), gaining a guild storage, and being able to add more members. Guilds can also gain a guild emblem and the ability to buy mercenaries to fight for the guild in a guild war or a job war. The current maximum guild level is 5.

The pet system allows characters to summon animals to aid them on certain tasks. Most pets have to be bought with Silk, or Silkroad's private currency on the Item Mall. The only pet that can be purchased with in-game gold is the Grey Wolf, which is equivalent with the White Wolf (only purchasable by Silk).

Pet Myowon (Monkey), Pet Seowon (Squirrel), Pet Toto (Rabbit), Gold Pig, and Pink Pig are only available in the Item Mall. Having their own inventory, these pets can be set to automatically pick up items dropped by monsters, thus saving the player time. However, these pets are only rentals, and may be used for 28 days before expiring. When the time limit runs out, the pet is automatically returned to the players' inventory; there is no chance to remove any items left in the pet's inventory. However, it is possible to regain usage of these pets via the Silk item "Revival Clock," which prolongs the rental period by 28 days. Any items in the pet's inventory will also be regained, as a pet's inventory is saved even after it expires.

White Wolves and Grey Wolves are combat-oriented pets, possessing their own statistics and gaining experience from combat. They also have the ability to grow, beginning as a puppy and maturing into a full-grown wolf at level 40. Both wolves are permanent additions once purchased; White Wolves cost Silk in the Item Mall, while Gray Wolves cost 1,000,000 gold at each city's Stable NPC. Unlike the other pets, wolves can be killed during combat, rendering them unable to be summoned until revived. They can be revived with the "Grass of Life" herb sold at each city's stable NPC for a fee of 50,000 gold. Both wolves have a yellow bar called the HGP Bar, or the Hunger Bar. Whenever a wolf is summoned, its HGP Bar will decrease. The HGP Bar will slowly decrease, once the HGP Bar reaches down to 30% the wolf's status will drop 50%. When this bar reaches 0, the wolf will die. Wolves can be fed with a yellow potion, HGP potions, sold by any stable NPC. These potions replenish 10% or 1000 HGP. You can also heal your wolf with a pet healing potion and you can cure your wolf of an abnormal state with a special abnormal state potion.

A player is able to fight against other players using a cape after level 10. There is no penalty or reward for either killing or dying in a cape fight. Capes can be purchased at the General store in all cities. Most of this fighting happens around the gates if cities less fighting happens around the Hotan area of the map as to Donwhang and Jangan.

When alchemy is successful using any elixir, a + followed by the corresponding number will appear next to the name. This is known as that item's endurability. The endurability can be increased but the chance of success decreases the higher up the number is. Certain levels of endurability change appearances for weapons and shields causing them to glow or shine different colors (does not apply protectors and accessories, however).

There is a chance the alchemy may fail. Using lucky powder, which can be purchased at an accessory store, can reduce the alchemy's chance of failure. If alchemy fails, it will reset the item's enhancement level to 0. There is also a chance that the weapon may break or lose the ability to be repaired.

Certain bonuses on items may also help with alchemy. Lucky increases the chance of a successful alchemy. Steady prevents an item from losing durability if the alchemy fails (above +4). Astral, which can be purchased in the Item Mall, will prevent an item with enhancement level 4 or more from dropping to enchantment level 0 if alchemy fails. Immortal prevents an item from breaking if the alchemy fails (above +4).

There is also a system to increase statistics on equipment. This system works by having the user first gather parts of defeated monsters, which can then be turned into base elements of a specific level (Wind, Water, Fire, Earth) with the aid of Void Rondo potions sold at any accessory store. Additionally, players may process equipment items (protector items and weapon items) with Destroyer Rondo. Note that the process of applying Destroyer Rondo to an equipment item destroys that item and usually nets a higher number of raw elements (and sometimes yields magic stones). These base elements of specific levels can then be joined together with a tablet requiring these levels to create a magical stone that increases specific statistics. Tablets also have levels, and may only be used on equipment of the same Degree as the tablet's level. These tablets are split between attribute tablets and magic tablets. Attribute tablets along with the necessary element components make attribute stones. These stones directly change and alter a weapons statistics. Magic tablets along with the necessary element components make magic stones. These stones, on the other hand, add stats that make the equipment "blue."

Equipment is split into four areas; weapons, shields, body protectors, and accessories.

Weapons: There are five types of weapons. The blade and sword attack quickly and are one-handed, allowing the character to use a shield for defense. Glaives and spears attack slower, but the attacks are more powerful, dealing more damage, but are two-handed. Bows attack slowly yet from a long range and deal reasonable damage, and are also two-handed weapons, also requiring arrows for ammunition. Of these five types, glaives and blades have a high strength ("Str") attack and deal more damage with weapon skills than magic, while swords and spears have high magical attacks and deal more damage with intelligence ("Int") skills. Bows are in the middle, but have slightly more magic attack power than physical attack power.

Shields: Shields can be equipped if the character uses a one-handed weapon, they increase defense and give the character a chance to block attacks depending on the block ratio (abbreviated "BR").

Body protection: There are three classes of body protection; armor (high physical but low magical defense), protector (balanced physical and magical defense), and garment (high magical but low physical defense). Garment class items cannot be worn at the same time as armor or protector class items, but armor and protectors can be combined. In addition, being equipped with any armor will endow a character with standard running speed and mp consumption, but a full set of protector will increase the running speed but decreasing mp consumption by 10 percent while garment will increase running speed, but decreasing mp consumption by 20 percent.

Accessories: In addition to clothing, characters can also wear accessories such as rings, necklaces, and earrings that can increase the rate of reincarnation of hit points and mana points.

There are several types of items on Silkroad. Most items are normal in the sense that they possess only regular properties. These items can also be called "white" items, due to the color of the item's name. Other items can have special properties that boost a specific characteristic, including "blue" items, as the item's name is shown in blue. An example of a non-blue special property item one is when it is called "Copper Bow + 3," as an example, as it is still a normal level although it is three levels higher than normal.

There are three more special ranks that equipment and weapons can have: Seal of Star (SOS), Seal of Moon (SOM), and Seal of Sun (SOSun). Each increases the item's statistics so it is similar to an item of higher level. Seal of Star weapons are the most common of the Seal weapons and are equivalent to a weapon 5 levels higher than the original weapon's level. Seal of Moon gives a bonus of 10 levels and Seal of Sun, the rarest of the Seals, gives a bonus of 15 levels. Seal weapons cannot be made, and are only available as a very rare drop from monsters. They can only be found on equipment of the same level as found in the NPC stores.

The Item Mall allows a character to buy items with "Silk," game currency bought with real money via Paypal, credit card, or other methods through the official site. Silk cannot be traded between players. Examples include an experience-enhancing scroll, pets (monkey, wolf, bunny, pig, squirrel) and decorations for a player's stall.

- In Silkroad Online, skills are divided between weapon and elemental masteries. Within each mastery, there are many series of skills that can be learnt. In addition, each mastery can only be reached up to the current level of the character.

Fire: Increases damage and has a chance to burn the target, increases the character's physical attack power, and magical defense from certain attacks. The Fire line is generally considered the damage line.

Lightning: Has a chance to decrease the enemy's parry ratio, increases the character's moving speed and parry ratio. The Lighting line is generally considered the utility line.

Cold: Increases damage and defense, as well as adding a chance to freeze or frostbite the enemy. The Cold line is generally considered the defensive line.

Force: Skills include healing, resurrection, removing abnormal (adverse) status effects, prevention of preemptive attacks, and increases mana. The Force line is generally considered the support line.

Full Strength: These characters invests all points into strengh, giving them a lot of health but not much energy. They have high physical damage, but low magical damage. Lastly, they have high physical defence, but weak magical defence.

Full Intellegent: These characters invests all points into intellegent, giving them a lot of energy but not much health. They have high magical damage, but low physical damage. Lastly, they have high magical defence, but weak physical defence.

Hybrid These characters invest points into both strength and intellegent. The ratio of the spread varies greatly from player to player. Common choices are 4:1, 3:1, 2:1 and 1:1.

Each server has a limit of 3,000 (except for Poseidon and Hercules, which have 2,500 and Odin has 2,000) players that can be logged in simultaneously. When a specific server has reached the limit, it stops allowing logins until space is cleared. During peak hours, this can lead to numerous attempts at logging in (which involve restarting the client), due to the lack of a login queuing system or other login control features. Customers that purchase a Premium Ticket (PT) for US$20 or US$15 can login regardless of server traffic. When a player with a Premium Ticket attempts a login, and the server has reached its limit, an additional spot will be granted for that player, and the server limit will be increased by 1, until someone leaves that server.

Closely related to server capacity limits, players are able to set up stalls with items in it and leave those stalls running for indefinite periods of time. Also, some users set up multiple player accounts so they are able to play on one while selling on another. This all leads to less available login slots, but is allowed by Joymax.

Though Silkroad has continuously added equipment to reduce lag, and though they are trying round the clock,[2][3] many players still complain about instances of lag in the game, particularly in crowded areas, such as in towns or during fights with unique monsters.

Occasionally the game will crash without warning or explanation, possibly endangering the validity of player accounts. It is speculated that a reason for these crashes could be linked to GameGuard, which hides its own running processes akin to types of rootkits.

The official International version of the game is written in a combination of British English and American English (for example, both "defense" and "defence" are used). In addition, there are many basic grammar, spelling (e.g. "glavie" for "glaive"), and punctuation mistakes. Similarly, many items are translated differently: a player seeking a tiger's molar in some versions will have to seek a tiger grinding tooth in others, which is confusing for some players. When the Europe update is introduced in the international version of Silkroad, errors' such of these will be corrected.

Joymax disallows profanity in the game's chat by filtering out combinations of letters that potentially spell out disallowed words. In previous versions this, in some cases, made it difficult to converse with other players. For example the sentence "if u want" used to be ignored by the in game chat system due to the letters f and u appearing in close proximity to one another. Other examples include (banned words in parenthesis) "hope you get passed" (ass), "jewels" (jew), "cumulative" (cum). As a result, it has been sometimes difficult to converse on a normal level, though was, and still is, easy to bypass the filtering system using different symbols.

Some areas can cause drops in frame rates, most noticeably in towns, where there can be hundreds of players in one location at any given time. Reducing the graphic quality settings of the game help to reduce this issue. (False: System Dependant. As ALL Games are.)

There are serious problems with botters, despite the fact the game uses GameGuard to prevent hacks, bots, modifications, and cheats as it is still possible to bypass these defenses. In attempts to combat this issue, "Client Altering Preventing Function" and other functions have been added.[4] In addition, users are encouraged by Joymax to report encountered botters via the support page on the game's Web site.

This problem has been somewhat alleviates as Joymax has recently been blocking bots in large amounts; 1,500 were blocked during the first exertion,[5] 1,400 in the second,[6] 1,700 in the third,[7] and 4,000 in the fourth, with more rolling in every month.[8]

In later updates, Joymax has introduced image verification or CAPTCHA to further prevent the use of bots, however, bot users can simply input the CAPTCHA themselves, then turn on the bot.

There have been multiple cases of users being hacked and losing their accounts in the game. Each server's specific "Silk Assistants" work to report to these incidents to the Game Masters. If confirmed, the offenders are likely to have the accounts permanently closed, as per the Terms of Service agreement. There is a general consensus amongst the playerbase that these hackings are linked to the usage of bots, which could be laced with keyloggers and other computer viruses. Most instances of so-called "account hacking" in the game are better described as theft or scamming. It is possible, however, a password can be obtained with a brute force attack if the username is obtained. Silkroad, however, will not assist in recovering hacked accounts. Just recently, regardless of the warning from the hacker below, over 300,000 accounts were hacked. Players blamed Joymax for doing nothing to secure the server from the intruder.

On January 12, 2007 an unknown individual exploited a security flaw in the official web site for Silkroad Online, posting a notice that read, "JoyMax, you are neglecting the security of your website. Do you care about your customers at all?" Shortly thereafter the site was taken down for maintenance.

One well-known exploit is the ability for Thief and Merchant players to kill other players without repercussion through the job system. Due to NPC Thieves based upon the Thief or Merchants levels being spawned during transit, it is possible for high level NPC Thieves to be spawned in low-level areas, or around a specific target, allowing thieves to steal from one star traders that would be otherwise untouchable. When the Europe update is released, Hunter monsters will be spawned for Thief players instead of Thief monsters which will help with the thief spawning problem.

Other exploits that have taken center stage in bringing SRO servers to a halt include "gold duping," where users utilize in-game exploits to create large amounts of gold from nothing. One group of individuals used this technique to create enormous amounts of money, flooding various servers with their gold in an attempt to bring to light how vulnerable SRO has become to hackers. Within 12 hours, Silkroad identified and patched the vulnerability, as well as rolled back all servers to a backup before the gold was duped. Although this action was necessary, it caused an outrage among some players, as all their experience, items and gold gained during that time frame was lost. However, the swift action that Silkroad took has garnered praise by others, but have led to questions as other exploits such as credit card fraud and botting still run rampant.

Another issue is with the amount of credit card fraud, also known as "CCF," occurring on the servers. People who engage in this type of fraud are able to purchase Item Mall items illegally at no cost to them. Many believe this is causing an unfair balance between people who are able to buy an unlimited amount of purchasable items and those who play legitimately. However, as this violates the Terms of Service agreement, Joymax will permanently ban anyone found to be engaging in credit card fraud. In addition, Silkroad has also attempted to curb this issue by adding level restrictions to the purchase of certain items such as astral and immortal, common targets of CCF as they allow players to create highly valuable in-game items.